88 BEES. 



served together, as the Bed as of Ceylon are said to 

 season their meat with honey. At any rate, as the lo- 

 cust is often a great plague in Palestine, the prophet in 

 eating them found his account in the general weal, anc 

 in the profit of the pastoral bees ; the fewer locusts, 

 the more flowers. Owing to its numerous wild-flowers 

 and flowering shrubs, Palestine has always been a fa- 

 mous country for bees. They deposit their honey in 

 hollow trees as our bees do when they escape from the 

 hive, and in holes in the rocks as ours do not. In a 

 tropical or semi-tropical climate bees are quite apt 

 to take refuge in the rocks, but where, ice and snow 

 prevail, as with us, they are much safer high up in the 

 trunk of a forest tree. 



The best honey is the product of the milder parts of 

 the temperate zone. There are too many rank and 

 poisonous plants in the tropics. Honey from certain 

 districts of Turkey produces headache and vomiting, 

 and that from Brazil is used chiefly as medicine. The 

 honey of Mount Hymettus owes its fine quality to wild 

 thyme. The best honey in Persia and in Florida is 

 collected from the orange blossom. The celebrated 

 honey of Narbonne in the south of France is obtained 

 from a species of rosemary. In Scotland good honey 

 is made from the blossoming heather. 



California honey is white and delicate and highly 

 perfumed, and now takes the lead in the market. 

 But honey is honey the world over ; and the bee is 

 the bee still. " Men may degenerate," sa} r s an old 

 traveler, " may forget the arts by which they acquired 

 renown ; manufactories may fail, and commodities be 

 debased, but the sweets of the wild-flowers of the 

 wilderness, the industry and natural mechanics of 

 the bee, will continue without change or derogation.' 1 



